ROCKFORD — Teams are never forced to punt. Coaches choose to punt. Not John Cacciatore. Not after winning a last-minute shootout against Belvidere North two weeks ago and falling behind on the opening drive Saturday.

No. 1-ranked Boylan went 5-for-5 on fourth down and scored three of its first four TDs after fourth-down conversions to stop North 35-17 in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs.

“I haven’t seen other coaches do that, but Coach has faith in us, in the whole offensive unit,” said quarterback Demry Croft (17 of 30 for 223 yards), who threw three second-half TD passes.

Kyle Hartfiel, the only senior on North’s offense, made a spectacular, one-handed grab for an 8-yard TD to give North (5-5) a quick lead. Boylan then went for it on fourth-and-3 from its own 42 and again on fourth-and-4 from the North 42. Zack Mathews battered the middle of North’s defense for both conversions.

“He didn’t look like he was fit to be stopped any time soon,” Cacciatore said.

Sam McGuire then gave Boylan the lead for good at 14-7 with a 1-yard run on fourth-and-goal as the Titans opened the game with 19- and 11-play drives.

“The last time, we put the defense in a bad situation with three-and-outs,” Cacciatore said. “I was trying to avoid that today by being aggressive. We did not want to get in a track meet with them. That’s not what we do typically. We were content with grinding the clock.”

Boylan (10-0), which will play at Cary-Grove (7-3) next week, also played great pass defense. After giving up 378 yards to Jace Bankord and 165 to Kevin Tevebaugh two weeks ago, the Titans sacked Bankord five times, held him to 19 of 43 passing for 197 yards and held Tevebaugh to three catches for 20 yards.

“He’s a great receiver,” Flores said, “but once our team comes together as one, we just play out of our minds.”

Hartfiel scored on a 33-yard pass from Bankord to pull North to within 21-17 with 11:17 left, but Bankord was just 5 of 12 for 36 yards the rest of the way.

“We were trying to make plays, but there was nobody open,” said Bankord, who finished the season with a NIC-10 record 2,283 yards. “Our defense really stepped up, but we just couldn’t quite get things going on offense.”